Subject: news from MV Trident
Dear Divers,
Our last trip was to the wreck we call the Bigboy to try and identify her
and check out a few nearby marks.
We’ve only dived this wreck for two days previously so only knew that she
was an old 4000 ton + twin superstructure freighter upright in 68m, damage
to the starboard amid-ships.
The first two dives we noticed that the damage was right across the hull,
the back of the ship is completely broken. We found a lot of Dutch ceramics
and Singaporean and Korean bottles. The ship is definitely WW2 vintage, lots
of brass fittings and no plastic wiring, but the bottles looked newer.
We left a buoy on the wreck and traveled only a mile to another mark. This
wreck turned out to be a ship’s bow and a few metres of deck.
When we returned to the Bigboy my first dive was to the bow for the first
time where I was sure it looked too short, it’s hard to tell as it’s draped
in many layers of nets. Even with video footage it was difficult to be sure.
My theory was that the bow belonged to the Bigboy which some of our divers
thought was hilarious and they royally took the piss for the next few days.
We agreed that the only way to prove or bust this myth was to find another
stern half or cut the nets off the Bigboy’s bow to show it’s there or not.
This could wait until next time as we had other marks to explore.
On the way home we checked a few more marks, nothing very interesting, some
wooden wrecks of fishing boats, no porcelain unfortunately, and then a very
big wooden wreck close to Koh Tao, full of cargo, bottles, plates, a 150k
brass propeller. Non of the bottles were recognizable or modern and there’s
no plastics again.
When we returned to Koh Tao I asked some of the locals if they remembered a
wooden cargo boat sinking about 40years ago only 8 miles out, but no-one
did. One fishermen asked what else we found and when I told him about the
Bigboy he told me he knew all about it.
It turns out in the 1950’s a freighter hit another one sixty miles off Koh
Tao. The freighter lost it’s bow and sunk very quickly, the bow floated
away while the first freighter, damaged but not fatally, picked up the
crew.
The fisherman told me she was a Singaporean freighter carrying a cargo of
Dutch china plates, which the fisherman told me they nicknamed the ‘
Sangolok Wreck’.
I reckon that’s it so there’s a few divers that need to report for a hat
eating session very soon.
Our next trip to another area where we have two known wrecks, the HTMS
Pangan and a post war tanker and six undived marks will be leaving on Friday
evening 20th October.
If you’re interested let me know.
Jamie Macleod, MV Trident
http://www.techthailand.com/
If you haven’t seen our video, try the link below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbbtzCrTJU0
